Simulation of an industrial pyrolysis gasoline hydrogenation unit

A model is developed based on a two-stage hydrogenation of pyrolysis gasoline to obtain a C(6)-C(8) cut suitable for extraction of aromatics. In order to model the hydrogenation reactors, suitable hydrodynamic and reaction submodels should be solved simultaneously. The first stage hydrogenation takes place in a trickle bed reactor. The reaction rates of different di-olefines as well as hydrodynamic parameters of the trickle bed (i.e., catalyst wetting efficiency, pressure drop, mass transfer coefficient and liquid hold-up) have been combined to derive the equations to model this reactor. The second stage hydrogenation takes place in a two compartment fixed bed reactor. Hydrogenation of olefines takes place in the first compartment while sulfur is eliminated from the flow in the second compartment. These reactions occur at relatively higher temperature and pressure compared to the first stage. The key component in this stage is considered to be cyclohexene, of which the hydrogenation was found to be the most difficult of the olefines present in the feed. The Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetic expression was adopted for the hydrogenation of cyclohexene and its kinetic parameters were determined experimentally in a micro-reactor in the presence of the industrial catalyst. The model was solved for the whole process of hydrogenation, including hydro-desulfurization. The predictions of the model were compared with actual plant data from an industrial scale pyrolysis gasoline hydrogenation unit and satisfactory agreement was found between the model and plant data.